Dell EMC Rolled Out Unique Improvements To Its Channel Program At Dell EMC World

Two weeks ago, I attended Dell EMC’s annual premier conference, Dell EMC World, held in Las Vegas. I did a detailed write-up on many of the bigger technology and product topics coming out of the event, which you can read here. I also attended many of Dell’s channel events and got a lot of one on one time with Dell EMC’s senior channel executive, including channel President John Byrne, alliances SVP Jay Snyder, channel marketing SVP Cheryl Cook, and distribution SVP Jim DeFoe. Based on those conversations and announcements, I wanted to spend some time talking about two elements of its new partner programs and services that I didn’t think were externally discussed as much as they could have been. Some background, first.

In the early days of Dell, the company fancied itself as "the“direct company”, but many things have changed over a decade, and Dell Technologies’ Global Channel is a whopping $35 billion-dollar business.

Dell EMC’s stated vision for its partner program is to help their partners break into new and existing markets. Every big tech company has their partner programs, but the extent to which they can accomplish this goal varies widely across the board. It’s easy to pay lip service to, but a little harder to execute successfully. One of the unique parts of Dell EMC’s channel program is the huge upside potential. $35B is impressive, but is relatively small compared to their competitors.

Incumbency expanded for channel partners

Patrick Moorhead

Getting the inside scoop from Dell EMC channel chief John Byrne

In all channel businesses, the notion of “incumbency” is important. Incumbency says that the channel partner gets sales credit for accounts they brought into the vendor. One of the bigger channel announcements was that Dell EMC would be evolving and expanding their line of business (LoB) incumbency for storage to Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) in its commercial sales division. For background, the LOB Incumbency program was established back in 2016 to help recognize the special relationships their partners had previously established with their customers. The program considers historical business performance, and aims to reduce direct conflict by aligning Dell EMC sales teams to a Channel Partner in one of these identified ‘incumbent’ accounts.. The main goal is to help Dell EMC’s partners protect their deals, while simultaneously honoring their relationships across the various divisions.

This new expansion would effectively extend incumbency across all lines of business: storage, networking, server, backup, converged/hyperconverged systems, and solutions.

Dell EMC says this will allow it and their partners to grow their businesses and really band together to drive business. I think this a strong part of the program and at the show, channel partners anecdotally told me they were very happy about that.